[PC] CrossCode - "Boss Battle" by Greg

[Zeta]

Submission Information:
Series: Other
Game: CrossCode
Console: PC
Title: Boss Battle
Instrumentation Solo Piano
Arranger: Greg

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[Greg]

[Greg]

Whoops, just realized the layout got screwed on the second page. Fixed that.

[Libera]

Yay more of this ost.

-In the original, the bass has extra repeated notes in the opening bars which aren't very playable.  But there is one suggestion I have to get in some extra notes without changing the playability which you might want to consider:

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(and then a similar thing for the other bars.)

-Now then, a completely opposite comment: in the rest of the piece you do use the repeated notes, but I really don't think the ones in bars 9-24 are very easy to play.  I'd suggest moving every second one up the octave when you have two repeated semiquavers.  Something like this:

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You might need to fiddle with some voicings to get it to work in places, but I really don't think the repeated semiquaver bass line works at the moment (especially since the pianist has to do it for so long.)  The ones after bar 25 aren't so bad because they're more sporadic.

-I really think this sheet could do with a staff size change.  Finale default is quite big, and we've got a lot of notes going around so it'd help everything to fit on the page nicer.  I pretty much use 0.65cm for all of my arrangements, and I think that would work here (but play around to see what you like.)
-Change everywhere you have two tied semiquavers in the middle of a beat to a quaver.  (Unless I'm completely forgetting my beaming rules.)
-Since the left hand dynamic pattern is constant you could show the first two and then hide the rest and place a simile (up until bar 37 where it does change.)
-In bar 8 and 50 the contour of the line is being messed up because you've placed the middle two notes on the lower staff.  I'm assuming you're doing that to show which hands play what, but there are better ways of implementing that.  One way would be to properly cross staff them (so everything is beamed correctly) but the way I'd prefer is to place all of the notes on the top staff and then indicate with brackets which hand plays which notes.  That way the contour of the notes is entirely preserved (and also you get rid of all of the ledger lines.)
-In the left hand of bars 7 and 49 it should always be two quaver rests after each note.
-I think four flats would be more appropriate than three.  It does a lot of work around F bass pedals.
-The top line in bar 24 I'm hearing differently.  The top voice sounds like it's doing:

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Also, I'd consider simplifying the right hand in that bar by either having the lower notes restrike as well or just having them not tie over to the next quaver.
-I'd suggst putting the top staff in bars 9-15 and 33-39 as bass clef.
-I think dropping the left hand down an octave from bar 33-47 might be appropriate (the original is certainly bassy enough).  It'd help remove the collisions between the right and left hand in this section and also helps make the left hand part for the piece a little bit more interesting.
-Not really important but the playback is currently set to start at bar 2.  I know some people like to listen to the playback so it might be an idea to just move it back to the beginning.
-I don't think the left hand has to be so quiet in comparison to the right hand from bar 40 onwards.  In fact, at this point I'd probably be in favour of dropping the different dynamics for each staff: just have forte in bar 40 (haha) and then crescendo all the way up to the end of bar 48.  (Maybe put a fortissimo at bar 44 and another crescendo up to the end.)

I know that's a lot, so if you have any questions be sure to ask!  (Also I just bought the game and the soundtrack haha.)

[Greg]

• Hey, that sounds great! Done.
• Good call. No issues with voicing.
• Sure.
• Whoops, I keep forgetting how to do that properly. Fixed.
• Yeah, that looks a lot better.
• I used a hook above the notes to show it. Hopefully that's clear!
• Whoops.
• Yeah, that's fine by me.
• Disagree with this, to be honest. I can understand why you're putting Db there instead of C, but I'm choosing to interpret it as a distorted C because otherwise the harmony there makes no sense! As for the first note... I hear Ab pretty clearly there! (I did remove the repeated lower notes.)
• Sure.
• Sounds good to me.
• Whoops. I do this a lot to play the arrangement synchronized with the original to find inconsistencies and forget to change it back.
• Sure thing.

Thanks for the feedback!

(Also I just bought the game and the soundtrack haha.)

Hey, hope you enjoy it! You're not the first person I've managed to convince to buy this game via the soundtrack, haha.

[Libera]

Great work on those edits!  I have got a few more things to say though:

-I noticed this on your other sheet as well, but do you not lock measures?  It's a really handy tool, (ctrl + l locks and ctrl + m sets a number of measures in a system) and helps you to keep in control of the measure distribution in a sheet.  Another thing is that when you make edits, if you're measures aren't locked then finale will often move things around wildly which can make things go wrong and is just generally annoying.  Once you've gone through the sheet and chosen a measure distribution I might comment on it some more.  At the moment there are a number of issues (some systems have too few measures and some have too little) but I'm guessing a lot of those problems will go away when you've had a look through it.  Also the distribution seems to have changed loads after you updated the files and I don't know whether that was intentional or not.

• Disagree with this, to be honest. I can understand why you're putting Db there instead of C, but I'm choosing to interpret it as a distorted C because otherwise the harmony there makes no sense! As for the first note... I hear Ab pretty clearly there! (I did remove the repeated lower notes.)

Hmm, so the harmony does make sense with the Db: it's just a C7 flat 9 and it's not like this composer is averse to 9 chords (if you remember with Lea! they were all over the place).  The ending of that bar is more dissonant than what you currently have so I feel like it feels a bit plain compared to the original.  Also about the Ab, it is there but it isn't in the highest instrument (but I can see the argument in keeping the Ab at the top if you want to.)  Certainly of the two things, the Db is the more important change I'm suggesting.

I used a hook above the notes to show it. Hopefully that's clear!

I'm guessing that you want the left hand to play only the third and fourth notes, so it might be worth having a second hook (flipped) over the last two to show those are for the right hand.  At the moment it sort of looks like you're suggesting the left hand play the last four notes.  Maybe you could put a line on the other side to make a sort of bucket? (although I'm not sure that's something I've ever seen before.)

-If it were me, I'd have used an 8va for the left hand in bars 33-44 just to save space under the systems, but it's not terribly important if you don't want to.

But yeah this is shaping up really nicely.

[Greg]

• Hey, thanks for telling me about that. I really ought to know better than to rely on Finale's defaults for anything at this point. I changed it to (mostly) three measures per system.
• I see your point. Changed to Db. (I'm leaving the Ab though: I feel like it sounds better to avoid the repeated F from the previous measure.)
• Changed to brackets per your suggestion.
• Done.

[Libera]

Yeah this is looking swish.

Just some tiny things from your edits:

-Is that fp in bar 47 still meant to be there?
-Could we move the crotchet rest in bar 43 a tiny bit down?  (Just one press should do the trick.)
-I suggest going to two bars a system on the last page to give the 12/8 and the triplet bar some extra space (and so it looks like the equivalent bars on the first page.)

[Greg]

• haha whoops
• Done.
• Yeah, that looks better.

[Libera]

Sorry for all the back and forth, but could we move all of the systems on the first page up a little?  You've got some free space underneath the title and composer/arranger info and it's a little close to the copyright at the bottom.

After that this gets an approval from me.

[Greg]

Sure thing.

[Libera]

Nice!

[Latios212]

Very good, just a few minor visual comments as well as one functional one.
- The long crescendo from 44 yo 47 has no end dynamic. Can we put a fff at the end of it?
- Subsequent page headers are missing the closing quote. To avoid this problem, edit the information through the Score Manager rather than editing the text box itself - here the " isn't included in the metadata, only the text box.
- Backslash at the end of the URL.
- The last system is larger than the others (resize staff to 90%).

I can make these edits if you're busy, let me know if you want me to.

[Greg]

• Done.
• Whoops.
• Done.
• what the heck Finale

[Latios212]

Awesome!